The House Judiciary Committee held a hearing about press freedom this morning. Notable investigative reporters like Sharyl Attkisson and Catherine Herridge were invited to testify. Attkisson left CBS in 2014 after months of tension between her and network heads regarding her story selection.
The reporter claimed her devices were hacked, an allegation later confirmed by CBS News. One of the stories that network heads probably didn’t like in the wake of the Solyndra disaster was the investigative report she filed about how the Obama administration was pouring millions of taxpayers’ dollars into clean energy projects which were exceptionally risky.
Now, Catherine Herridge, formerly of Fox News, appears to have been subjected to the same treatment, with network brass unhappy with her stories, namely the investigation into Hunter Biden’s laptop. Herridge was unceremoniously fired in February. Shortly thereafter, the network seized her confidential files, which were later returned but not after an uproar over First Amendment issues.
Herridge testified that she was locked out of her emails and office on the day of her termination. Her former employer took hundreds of pages from her reporting files, including those from confidential sources.
“That’s not normal, is it?” interjected Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the committee chairman.
Herridge said that wasn’t her experience with her two previous employers.
“When the network of Walter Cronkite seizes your reporting files including confidential source information, that is an attack on investigative journalism,” she said.
Ms. Herridge added that if she didn’t have the support of SAG-AFTRA, she doesn’t know if she would have got her materials back.
“It’s an attack on free press. It’s an attack on the First Amendment. It makes it more challenging for reporters to work in the future that disrupts the free flow of information to the public,” Herridge added.
Catherine Herridge says CBS' seizure of her files and records was "journalistic rape" @DailyCaller pic.twitter.com/gBTQmIx8oX
— Nicole Silverio (@NicoleMSilverio) April 11, 2024
The ex-CBS News reporter then had some brutal words regarding her ordeal, saying, “When my records were seized, I felt it was a journalistic rape.”
Herridge isn’t out of the woods yet. Last February, around the time of her termination from CBS News, she was held in contempt for not revealing her sources concerning a series of reports she filed with Fox News concerning a Chinese American scientist, Yanping Chen, who became the subject of a federal investigation. Ms. Chen was running a graduate program in Virginia. These stories were filed in 2017, but Chen filed a lawsuit saying her privacy was breached and selectively leaked to the public, damaging her career. She wants to know who tipped Fox News off regarding this federal probe. Herridge has refused to reveal her sources at the cost of $800/day.
Full Hearing:
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